Tell us about your Hollywood debut.
This is ‘Never Back Down: Revolt’ and it’s a franchise of Sony Pictures. ‘Never back down’ came in 2008, the first one, and the second came in 2013, third came in 2017 and this is the fourth edition and I got to play Jaya, which is one of the main leads among two girls. I got to do my own action, drama, we shot in London, in one degree and it was literally an amazing shoot. I had Tim Man as my fight master, I had Kellie Madison as my director and the person who had faith in me, who trusted me is my producer, David Zelon and I can’t thank him enough. Thank you David for giving me this opportunity and Sony for making things happen which was beyond imagination.
Since the age of 3, you have been doing martial arts. Tell us something about that journey.
Yes, sometimes you do some things which you’re very comfortable with. Since I’ve been doing martial arts since my childhood, in general life my body language, the way I sit, the way I talk, the comfortable and the confident person that I am, all comes from my martial arts background. My family keeps joking that she doesn’t even stand straight, she’s always moving. Most of the time when I’m sitting with my family at my home, I’m sitting in a stretched position, the 180° stretch which is my comfort zone to sit or I’m sitting like my legs going up. My brother keeps commenting, and he always says, ‘ Mummy see Nitu didi is breaking her legs’. So they don’t realise that’s my comfort zone. Martial arts and Taekwondo is what I’ve been training and I think that’s my comfort zone, but as an actor I also have been doing theatre. I’ve done ‘Umrao Jaan’, a lot of shows from plays, I’ve played a girl of 17 years of age to 85. So drama comes very easy to me I think, as an actor. So this movie is drama and action which became very comfortable. I’m so happy and I would literally advocate and request all the parents to train their kids in martial arts, because it’s not only physical, it’s mental as well. They will be very strong to present themselves in front of the world, that’s what my mother did and the credit is to her, where I am today.
What made you pursue acting?
Well, I would say destiny. I come from Bihar and I’m very proud of it because Bihar has taught me to be rooted, to be where I am, to go out in the world and to make the best out of your ability. Because I come from Bihar, I have knowledge of the land and as I’m doing Hollywood now, I hangout with top class people as well. So any story or any film or any lifestyle is between these two. So I’m very happy that this journey has happened. My father met with an accident when we were in 10th standard and he lost his memory, he was in coma for literally 2-3 years. My brother Nitin Chandra who’s a National Award writer and a director from Bihar in a language of Maithili, where I produced the film. Both of us, we used to literally throw pamphlets in Pragati maidan and worked in McDonald’s literally frying fries or washing dishes and all of these things. Even though we came from a well to-do and well-established family, we decided not to take a single penny from our parents after 10th standard, since such a disaster had happened in our family. So we were like, ‘let’s see what happens’.
Since I came from a sports background, I didn’t feel anything was impossible in this world and I think when you decide to do something like this, it’s manifested, and that’s how it started. I was in Pragati maidan doing this and at that time I was studying in school and we used to visit there during holidays. So Madhu Shah Sarkar, Pradeep Sarkar’s sister gave me a break of liberty footwear. I think she saw me somewhere and henceforth called me for audition, gave me the role and I’m really thankful Madhu di that you gave me that opportunity and then Dibakar Banerjee have me the same opportunity. I did an ad with him of a refrigerator. Vinay Pathak was the main lead and there were four girls behind him and I was one of the girls. I thought it would be good, I can support my education on this and I started like that. I did a lot of TV commercials and all and one of the commercials that I was doing was with Priyadarshan sir and Mr Bachchan. We’ve literally grown up watching him, so when I saw him I got numb and I was like, ‘Wow!’ He’s totally a world of films when you talk about him. So I did an ad of Parker pen with him and then Priya sir only offered me ‘Garam Masala’ and that’s how it started.
For me it was like, you’re in college and you’re already seeing the actors you’ve grown watching films of. I was cast opposite Akshay Kumar and John Abraham and I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ Because you know people from Bihar, they don’t think of coming to Bombay. They go to Delhi most of the time for education. So I came here, I enrolled myself in a college and I came here. So that’s how the journey started and after that, after doing ‘Garam Masala’ everybody was offering me the same kind of roles, but I saw an article of Madhur Bhandarkar where he said, ‘ I’m looking for somebody like Smita Patil’ and I found his number and messaged him, ‘I’m your Smita Patil’. So he called me to meet him and I went in salwaar kameez. The film’s name was ‘Traffic Signal’, so what can you expect? But I went in such a look that the security didn’t let me in. Madhur sir’s assistant was Prem ji, so I addressed Prem sir, I was like, ‘Prem sir, Madhur sir has called me for audition’ so that’s how I was auditioned with Kunal and I got that. I was 16-17, I did that for 2-3 years and then there was no stopping. Until 2009 the industry continuously gave me opportunities to work and I was very honoured and happy that I’m a part of Bollywood for a longtime and also South Indian movies because Adi bhagwan came my way where I played a negative and a positive role. I got the Best Actor’s Award in SIIMA for that and Amit Sultan who’s the National Award director got me in that position. And then I was a part of ‘Singam 3′ with Suriya and with Madhavan in ’13B’ which was in Tamil. Then I did a film with Vishal and Jayam Ravi. So the journey was going on and in 2014-15, I started travelling the world. But before that, in 2011-12, I started doing ‘Umrao Jaan’. It was like it’s said, ‘The lion that has once tasted blood is never sated with the taste of it’. I kept training and I was positive in my negative times also, because the only strength that I have is me, myself.
There was a time where I felt like was losing everything, my PR left, my management left, everybody left because I was not doing movies, I was doing theatre. So I thought how is this going to work but I realised that if you don’t leave your own hand, then it’s totally fine. People will come and go in your life but the moment you leave your own hand, then it’s not fine and I never left my own hand. So I started doing theatre. ‘Umrao Jaan’ taught me a lot, I used to be live on stage for 2 hours, from 17 years to 85. Purva Naresh was the producer and Hidayat Sami was the director. We did a lot of shows and at a lot of places, in Bhopal, in Delhi and everywhere else. Subhrojit is an amazing actor, Niranjan Iyengar was the lyrics writer and Nadavas Lehji was the lyrics writer for that. I think my journey has been so incredible, everything was such a learning curve and after that where I stand today, I deserve it. And I would say that because once when I lost everything and had nothing left, I fell from such an height and fell so down that after that going lower only meant rising above. Today with a lot of pride I can say, I’m a success story of a lot of failures and I’m very proud of it. And this is just the start, I’m going to do a lot of work.
You have been through failures and those failures have made you strong. Failures have been a part of your success. But the time when you didn’t get roles in Bollywood, how did you survive?
Financially survivals were item songs, to be very honest. If you see me dancing here and there, you understand that I needed money. This is not rocket science, everyone needs a financial background for survival and I have never taken a single penny from my parents after 10th standard. It’s been tough but there have been people who have supported me, stood by me here and there and I’m really thankful to all of you guys. But that was not enough because everybody has their own survivals and everybody is fighting their own life and journey. So I personally felt that I have to support my own self. I kept doing events and appearances and ribbon cuttings and because my films were not coming, brands were not coming to me and I realised that your market is lesser because your movies have to be rotating. So the work was not much and so I started doing item songs because I thought I’ll do shows and all but I never did any movie for money. I’ll do other things for survival but once you do bad movie, that will be a stab in your career for a long time. So I never did any movie for money, but I’ve done item songs and shows for money. I’ve done appearances, ribbon cuttings for it because these are the events which are not a part of your career. It doesn’t enhance or support your career, it just gives you money and I needed it, that’s how I survived.
How did you land a role in Hollywood?
I would just say manifestation. I think even God got tired of taking tests that he also felt, ‘I’ll have to give her what she wants’. Because I was never giving up, my never giving up attitude got me never back down revolt with Sony Pictures and I’m very proud of it and I promise that every Indian globally after watching it will be very proud of you. Because I have done everything on my own, I’m a self- made person, I’m a god-made person and this just happened in a way that for two years I was travelling back and forth and in 2019, I was invited for the special screening of ‘Bad Boys’ Will Smith’s movie at Sony Studio, Culver city. I met David Zilon there and he was introduced to me by Palak Patel who’s one of the heads of Sony, who’s from Indian origin and I’m very proud that he sits there and rules, the way the aesthetic films he does, the great films that he’s doing and the thought process, the creativity and I’m so happy to see Palak there. So I was very proud of Palak Patel, he got me introduced to David Zilon and then I started talking to David. He didn’t tell me before that he’s the producer of Never back down. All the girls there were thin, fair and had blonde hair and I was totally opposite. So brown skin, dark brown hair, curvaceous and I didn’t have blue eyes for sure. So he looked at me and he was like, ‘Oh, you’re from India, it’s amazing. You’re an actor, Wow!’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m looking at doing stuff here and I’m looking at making my opportunities globally’.
Not only English or Hollywood, you know, a Korean stuff came my way, I did a Greek film, I’m looking forward to doing action and stuff in my own country. I’m sitting right here, give me your call, everybody who knows me, they know that I answer everyone, I make sure that I do. Coming back towards David Zilon, I told him that I’m looking at doing things here and he asked me what all I could do. I just told him that I’m a black belt four done in Taekwondo, I’ve represented India three times and I’m good. I looked at him for five seconds and he said, ‘You are an action actor?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m an action actor’ and then the first line was, ‘Can you come to meet my writer in two days time at Sony? Let’s have lunch together.’ I said, ‘Sure!’ and then the next to next day, I went to meet Audrey, she’s the writer of the movie. I went to meet Audrey for lunch and of course David was there. So by the end of the meeting, David said, ‘Write a story, design a character around Nitu and her skills’. Because of my confidence and the way I presented myself, he had never taken an audition, he never did a look test. I looked at David, I looked at Audrey and Craig who was my another producer and I was like ,’Really?’ Because all this while I was roaming around trying to meet people, getting auditions done. I got this movie without audition, without look test and this can only be called luck. So he told Audrey that and then he turned towards me and said, ‘I’m going to do a blind bet on you’ and I looked at him and said, ‘And you won’t regret I promise’ and he said, ‘I expect that from you, from a martial artist’, because he himself is a martial artist. He’s a senior person, he’s been in the industry for 30 years, he knows who’s talking what. It’s not like you’ll say it and won’t do. You guys have done a video, you know what I can do and you can see the movie what I can do and it’s all over.
It’s said that you don’t need to state the obvious. So, you will see what I’m capable of, what I can do. I’ve put my heart and soul to it and when David said that I started working really hard and then I came to India in 2020 February and got stuck here. Then in July- August, I got a call from David saying that we want to shoot in London. I was like, ‘London? In the midst of Covid you want to shoot in London?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got the permission, we’ll shoot in London, you start training’. So at that time, during Covid, we all were just cooking and eating and all of us did the same thing and I had put on 5-6 kgs. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve put on weight’ but he was like, ‘No, I don’t want you to be skinny. I want you to look muscular and I want you to look like a fighter’. Then I called my trainer Amrit and told him that I needed his help. He was so gracious and I’m very thankful to him and I’ll always be thankful to Amrit because at the time of Covid when it was not allowed to step out of your homes, Amrit came home, he used to do my stretching and everything, we used to put masks and go to the park, run there, train there.
For two-three months we trained there and when I reached London, I met my bestfriend, Kellie Madison, my director and Tim Man in London. We started training for three weeks and then he got Michael Bisping, who’s a middleweight World Champion (UFC). He was in the movie, then I met the cast and the crew, Olivia Popica, who plays Anya. She’s a fantastic person and actor. Brooke who played the negative role, then I have Hannah, Vanessa and my very own best friend in the movie, who has played Valentina, Diana Horos who’s a very big star from Colombia. So these people were so good and I had such a great time working and shooting. By the end of the movie, I got three standing ovations throughout the movie and by the end of the movie, my producer David Zelon told me, ‘Nobody in the world could have played a better Jaya than you’. I was like, ‘David, say this in the press’ and he was like, ‘I will, you just wait and watch. Anybody who wants my quote, you just give them my number’. So I was very proud of the fact that I kept my words. I justified my character. I was there as I thought I would be and I actually draft my craft.
You also thanked Irrfan Khan who motivated you to be a part of Hollywood. Can you tell us something about that?
Well, we all love Irrfan sir and I will for once clear the whole air, because everybody’s been asking me. So in 2017 when I was in New York, people were calling me Brazilian or Italian or all of it, and I was wondering why can’t I make an opportunity here or a good opportunity globally? What stops me? I think I should just do it and I messaged Irrfan sir saying, ‘Irrfan sir, you’ve been working here. I would like to go to LA and meet people there, because I think I can do it. Just once give an opportunity’. He was shooting in London and he said, ‘Sure! I will get you introduced’, so he did get me introduced to Jay Khanna who was his manager at that time and I went to meet him. What happens is that when a senior introduces you to his manager, the manager will give you some tips and all, but that’s about it. After that I’ve never met Jay and that was like a 15-20 minutes meeting. I came back, I was in India for a long time, nothing happened at all. And then in 2019, I think on 27th of January I went back to LA and did my share of audition, fights, running around. I tried to get in touch with Jay Khanna, he himself is doing a lot of projects so I never got in touch with him. So nothing happened literally and then ‘Never Back Down’ happened. So the first time I ever entered LA was with Irrfan sir and he introduced me to Jay Khanna and that’s about it. Whatever I’ve done today and where I’m today, the credit is to me, myself and my fight. But I love him and I respect him.
Are you single right now ?
Well I’m not single. I’m married to my work right now and I know it’s a very cliche answer to give, but you know I’m not looking at getting married or anything. But if it happens you’ll know. Yes I like somebody but let’s see what happens.
For all the latest entertainment News Click Here
